April Challenges - Negative Space

Today I have skipped the #30daysofcolourchallenge today and done negative spaces for #clairestelle8april. I couldn't think of a way to combine them so I am doing two #30days tomorrow instead.
Claire's challenge - the negative space - eek I thought - maybe I should skip this too but I decided I'd just use a neutral base, and it would be a nice opportunity to try the nude polish in the Vintage Trio I got from Danglefoot Nail Polish.
Golden Oldie is a lovely warm nude with a subtle shimmer. It applied nicely and gave good coverage with 2 coats. Possibly a touch warmer tone than I would personally choose for nude nails, but very wearable and the perfect base for the negative space mani.
I used Apipila Super Plate A and A England Camelot to stamp this pretty swirly pattern. I was quite pleased with the finished look but I felt it needed something extra.

So, I used Leighton Denny Tiffany's to add a subtle touch of pink shimmer, just to tone it down a bit. I think for my skin tone the slightly pinker finish looked better and it softened the stamping a little, although I liked both.

Danglefoot Nail Polish Golden Oldie

negative space mani with Apipila Super Plate A

negative space mani with Apipila Super Plate A
with Leighton Denny Tiffany's

April Challenges - Blue and Blue for Autism Awareness

I decided to try and do more challenges which might be a bit mad because it is now year end at work so I'll probably be really busy. The logic is that if I follow the challenges I won't spend ages trying to decide what to do on my nails. We'll see - I think the blog posts will get shorter (hurray! I hear you shout)
Anyway, the first challenge is #30daysofcolourchallenge hosted by @procrastinailart. This is a daily challenge and the first prompt is blue.
The other challenge I decided to try is #ukstampersapril and the prompt for 1st April is Autism Awareness, so the 2 challenges should be OK to combine since the main colour behind this campaign is blue.
I started with a base of Nails Inc Instyle Bluebell, and then I stamped a water marble design from Hehe 040 - a wonderful plate if your water marbelling skills are anything like mine!
I still wanted to stamp on top of that so I went for a subtle effect, stamping Fancy Gloss Mermaid Tales. This is a very pretty blue tealy holo, not really opaque enough for bold stamping but perfect for what I wanted. I was really pleased with how that looked.
Finally, from Lealac LLC-A I have used the jigsaw image and Kleancolour Neon Sapphire.

Nails Inc Instyle Bluebell
#30daysofcolourchallenge

Hehe 040 and Fancy Gloss Mermaid Tales

 

Lealac LLC-A and Kleancolor Neon Sapphire
 #uknailstampersapril

 

Lealac LLC-A and Kleancolor Neon Sapphire
matte

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Uberchic Beauty UC 1-01 Essence Stampy 001 and A England Saint George

I had a bit of spare time so I thought I'd do a bit more stamping on today's mani.
I used the same plate, UC 1-01, again, and the same image but turned it round 90 degrees to get a sort of cross hatch effect. It worked well on my fingers but my thumb nails were just a bit too long. I used Essence Stampy 001 as I thought it would show up well over the neon pink.
Then, I used the same plate again, but chose a swirly leafy design that was quite open so plenty of the background would show, and A England Saint George which has stamped really nicely over the white.
So, we have 4 layers of stamping now, the original glitter is completely obscured but I now have a green leafy pattern set against a background of white and pink with tiny squares of A England Lancelot peeping through. I find this sort of layering fascinating, and it's quite fun to see how far I can go before it's just a mess! I think this is the time to stop on this one.

Uberchic Beauty UC 1-01 and Essence Stampy 001

 

  

Uberchic Beauty UC 1-01 and A England Saint George

 

 

Stamping! Uberchic Beauty UC 1-01 and Virtuous Polish Miriam

Today I fancied doing something quite bold over my Illusion mani from yesterday, and for no reason that I can think of, a little voice in my head said stamp with bright pink!
I don't have a huge selection of anything bright but of course I do have my Virtuous Polish Women of Valor collection so I have used Miriam, the beautiful neon pink.
I decided to stay with a similar image to yesterday so I chose this sweeping set of curves on UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01, stamping it so the tighter lines were at the base of the nail and the curves swept across the spirals underneath.
The pink is so bold that the base pattern is not that visible from some angles but I am still quite pleased with the end result.
These Virtuous polishes stamp beautifully but because they dry matte they dry very quickly. I had to stamp a lot quicker than I normally do. Generally I pick up the image and turn it around a couple of times while I decide exactly how I am going to place it. I think the pattern has been quite forgiving :)

Uberchic Beauty UC1-01 and Virtuous Polish Miriam

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Virtuous Polishes Queen Ester and Naomi and Moyou London Kaleidoscope 06

Today I have a couple of lovely polishes to show you and some stamping!
Over the last couple of weeks I had seen Annette from Rainbow Connection mention the new Virtuous Polishes that were coming in. I decided to ignore this as I am certain I have enough polish - oh yeah!! but then she mentioned that they were good for stamping, so I had to take a look!
I don't have many polishes actually for stamping - the ones I have are mostly metallic finishes, and I love stamping with holos but the idea of stamping with really bright neon shades really appealed to me. I am not really into bright shades for the whole nail, but combined with something else I thought I could be persuaded and, having just got my hands on one of the Moyou London Kaleidoscope plates it seemed the obvious combination.
Rainbow Connection are selling mini Virtuous polishes as a set of 7,the Women of Valor, a veritable rainbow of neon shades so I ordered the full set. Once they arrived I was delighted I'd gone for the set - they may be the only bright polishes I have but they are so cute and pretty, I am sure I'll be trying them all very soon (even the yellow).
Having said I would pair a bright polish with something less bright I changed my mind and went for Queen Ester and Naomi, purple and teal - I love those 2 colours together and couldn't wait to see if they would look good using the Kaleidoscope plate.
I painted my nails with Queen Ester to start. The polishes dry to a matte finish, which I believe helps them to be even more neon, but also means they dry very quickly. As a result my application wasn't perfect, I'll need to bear that in mind next time so if they look a bit streaky or ridged that is my fault.
I had already test stamped all of them so I knew  they'd be fine but again as they dry so quickly you need to be bit quicker stamping onto the nail once you've picked up the image. I tend to hold the stamper and look at the image, turn it round a few times while deciding which finger I might put it on - not a good plan - pick up the image and straight onto the nail worked far better! I stamped with Naomi, and it stamped perfectly, excellent coverage over the purple base.
The upside of drying quickly is that they clean up really easily, sellotape picked up almost all the mess.
I love the end result - I think the colours work perfectly with the image I chose, the light wasn't brilliant for taking photos but I took loads anyway!

Virtuous Polishes Queen Ester and Naomi
and Moyou London Kaleidoscope 06

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Stamping! Testing my new stamper and Essence Stampy polishes

Today I finally caught up with my work so I had some free time to play, which is great timing as my new stamper arrived yesterday. On the facebook stamping pages lots of people are raving about the Creative stamper, so I had to give it a try. My old stamper died, due to me using the wrong nail varnish remover to clean my plates so I have not been able to stamp for a while and waiting for the new stamper seemed to take forever.
Anyway, it's here now and first impressions, it seems to be excellent.
I decided to do my test stamping over yesterday's mani, as and that was quite a dark base I thought I'd stamp with white. On the recommendation of a number of people I ordered Essence Stampy 001 (white) and 002 (black) from Wilko - £1.50 each!! and asked my husband to collect them on his way home from work.
I used Moyou London Kitty 14 with the white polish and stamped roses over the dark green base. The plate is mostly butterflies but I wasn't quite in the mood for them today. The white is excellent, really opaque and quite a lot brighter than I was prepared for - it is a proper white!
Since I was in test mode and had the time, I decided to try a second layer of stamping and chose more roses on Moyou London XL Pro 10, and the black Essence polish.
The black is matte but top coat really brought this alive and although I was in 2 minds about it at first, after a couple of hours I decided I really like it. The black and white are both excellent polishes and I think they work reasonably well over the green base. I expect the double stamping effect would be more successful over a brighter base, like a red or orange, but I am happy with this as a first attempt and I am delighted with the new stamper, it picked the images up really well.

Moyou London Kitty 14

 

 

Moyou London Kitty 14 and Pro XL 10

 

 

 

Stamping and Saran wrap! Messy Mansion 20 and some pretty pastel flowers

Earlier in the week I was wearing Above the Curve Cold Rain, but I was bursting to try Messy Mansion 20, which has a sort of reverse image on it, where you are effectively stamping a background, and leaving the flowers as the base colour. I also had an idea I wanted to try out for a more colourful base which I thought would look good under black stamping.
I have done a few saran wrap manis and love the finished marbley look you get with very little effort, so I wanted to try a sort of saran wrap gradient thing! I chose 2 colours that went well with Cold Rain. Staying with the same brand of polish I chose This One's for My Peeps, a pinky lilac shimmery holo and Caty Perry-winkle which is a lilacy blue shimmery holo. Both these polishes have great opacity so I was pretty certain they'd work for a saran wrap mani.
I used the pinky one to do the lower half of my nails and the blue one for the tips and allowed the colours just to meet in the middle. I think the combination of colours look lovely together and had I not been so keen to stamp, I would probably have worn the mani just like that for a day.
I took a couple of pics and then started stamping. I used A England Camelot to stamp with and I did have a bit of a problem picking up the whole image so the stamping is not perfect. I do seem to struggle a bit with images where you have to pick up a lot of polish and I am thinking I should try this plate with one of my Mentality polishes and see if it is a bit more successful.
To the naked eye they look fine and I am really pleased with the finished look but blown up on the laptop you can see all the bits that aren't black when they should be.
I really like the black stamping with the pastel coloured flowers showing through - imperfections apart, they turned out exactly as I'd hoped and I absolutely love them!!

Saran wrap with Above the Curve Cold Rain,
This One's for My Peeps and Caty Perry-winkle

stamping with Messy Mansion 20

 

  

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Snowflakes

I have some very pretty snowflakes on my nails today, thanks to a very last minute purchase.
Back in October, when I was only just trying out stamping to see if I liked it, lots of people were talking about festive plates. My cautious and accountanty logical brain said, oh no we won't be bothering with festive plates, we won't get the use out of them, so I didn't buy any. Then of course I discovered I really enjoyed stamping and the whole world of nail people seemed to be stamping the most beautiful Christmas manis, I wanted to be part of it and I'd left it too late.
I have a couple of snowflakes on a set of mixed plates but for whatever reason although the plates are good ones, these 2 images refuse to stamp, so that was it - no snowflake manis for me :(
And then, on the last posting day before Christmas She Sells Seashells had a small number of snowflake plates, so I pounced! The plate arrived the next day and it is so pretty - it also includes some hearts, so there'll be a couple of Valentine manis too.
The plate has a strip of various snowflakes and I selected just one end for this mani.
I stamped over the beautiful sparkly Above the Curve Gryffindor, using Mentality White Opaque, which I have mentioned before does seem to come up quite silvery.
The polish and plate worked well together, despite the frustrating need to clean very thoroughly between stampings, and my biggest issue was with placement since my stamper is also white so I couldn't see the image too well, and non perfect images that I would normally discard and re-do did make it on to a couple of nails.
Despite that the end result is a very pretty mani. The silvery white over the shimmery dark red looks so wintery. I can still see the holo sparkle, which adds to the frosty look I think.
I am so pleased I got this plate and I reckon I can get a fair few snowflakes manis out between now and the end of February, because it is bound to be cold until then at the very least!

Snowflake mani